Here’s a Piper Malibu landing at Courchevel (1,762′): videos. The typical Malibu pilot is experienced and well-trained, so this supports my theory that we should all use FAR 121 minimums and go to runways in which the book landing length is no more than 60 percent of the actual runway length.
Even a good pilot can have a bad day.
Wow. It’s hard to believe the callous laughter and juvenile “oh s**t” commentary in the video. That plane hit hard, looks like about 50MPH+ at impact? Even into a snowbank that was a violent stop, and it’s very lucky nobody was more seriously injured. I’m guessing here – the pilot could never have successfully performed a touch and go? And what a runway!
It looks as though there is no go-around procedure. See https://home.flightgear.org/tours/mountain-flying-in-the-french-alps/ for the smart way to fly into this airport (in a sim!).
Yes, that seems like a totally normal airport on a totally normal day. But yeah, margins of error seem like a sound idea.
Readers might be interested in more extensive French Wikipedia entry, which mentions on-site restaurant “Le Pilatus,” and that altiport moniker was first used for https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altiport_de_Courchevel
Philip,
Great post!
Actually, you missed the real storyline….
Tail number = F-GUYZ…
How are your computer programming skillz coming along?
That place is bad. Even worse than the sway back runway at Telluride that causes lots of crashes..
https://www.telluridenews.com/norwood_post/news/article_8f81e70b-79ac-5b1b-9822-262e275f59f3.html
Clearly that didn’t go well and the pilot needed more runway. So why didn’t that pilot choose to land there, and not at Big Bend?